Fitting that on Valentine's Day, an Idaho newspaper Post Register reporting on a Times-News story revealed a new app teens are downloading to their phones called 'After School.'

As we always say: same tactics: different technology. After School is an anonymous Rating Site, which allows users to make lewd sexual comparisons about their classmates with zero consequences. According to the story, the "...widespread use of the After School app has left a vicious mark of bullying in its wake — along with a lot of sex talk that includes the names of students and educators."

Posts on After School message boards tied to other south-central Idaho schools have included nude photos of students, derogatory comments about appearance, name calling and comments about students’ body parts."

If you are a parent, you should already be having a conversation about what apps are unacceptable to download with your teen, especially if you own their phone. Click here on expert advice on how to have The Conversation as well as smart tools to prevent cyberbullying on your teen's phone.

Schools and parents need to know if they try to download the app, they will find it requires student verification in the form of a student identification card or driver’s license. The app logs in the student through his or her Facebook account, which makes deleting it more difficult.

If you need to know how a Rating Site occurs (one of our six most common cyberbullying tactics, buy our Parent's Guide To A Rating Site on Kindle or purchase a softcover copy of Cyberslammed, our award-winning cyberbullying book.

In Maine news this week after a 14-year-old Rockport boy threatened a 13-year-old girl through social media, there’s been a predictable amount of virulent conversations on social media concerning the teens, their parents, the school, and technology in general.

First, let’s start with the correct definition of what happened. A 14-year-old male allegedly threatened a 13-year-old girl with rape if she did not send nude photographs of herself. He also allegedly alluded that he was watching her, which is typically a hush tactic; i.e., "you tell on me and I'll make it worse for you."

This is more than just a threat on social media. It’s technically a form of what’s known as sexting extortion, or ‘sextortion.’

“Sexting” refers to taking nude photos of oneself and sharing the photo via cellphone. And why do teens do that? Because today, it is considered a form of relationship currency. Click here to read more of the legal dangers of underage consensual sexting.

But this was not consensual. This was extortion, and you’d better believe the police will get involved when something like this happens.

I’m not going to get into the whys with this column — I don’t know the parents or the kids, so I’m not qualified to speak on why it happened.

But, I am going to talk about how this was — and still is — preventable.

Since 2002, through Governor King’s 1:1 laptop initiative, every middle school and high school student in Maine was granted access to first a laptop, and later an iPad, to help them advance their 21st-Century skills.

But the gift came with virtually little to zero training on ethical digital behaviors and cyberbullying. I know, because throughout the 2000s, I was doing public presentations on cyberbullying for schools.

In 2012, when our cyberbullying book came out, a law passed in Maine mandating every single middle and high school enact a cyberbullying policy with training for the kids and for the staff.

I went around to schools and conferences on top of my full time job, for more than a year and gave free presentations to schools about sexting and other forms of cyberbullying. It opened the eyes of administrators and staff from dozens of Maine schools; but in 2013, still doing these presentations, I can honestly say, maybe three to four of the schools I visited got serious about the policy.

No school I knew of had, at that point, implemented any serious cyberbullying training or curriculum. (Not just some half-day assembly that students would forget in a few weeks.)

This, is of course, a field observation. Things might have changed now. I know MLTI offers Common Sense Media’s free Digital Literacy and Citizenship curriculum to schools, but it’s such light lunch. It does not get into the roots of serious cyberbullying (with all of its various moving parts).

I know teachers and administrators have earnestly tried to get a handle on this, but they’re not getting supported at the top.

So, it’s up to the parents. That’s what I’ve concluded after three years of working to try and turn Maine’s cyberbullying problem around. There has been woefully little done to even address it, much less turn it around. Three years after this law passed, Maine still ranks dead last in New England for controlling cyberbullying according to the latest study. Massachusetts ranks first nationally.

So, what can you do? First, it doesn’t matter what the app was used in this sexting extortion. (For the record, it was Snapchat).

If you kill the app off your kid’s phone, another toxic one will spring up in six months. Guaranteed. What you have to do is have ‘The Conversation’ when it comes to your kids’ use of digital devices.

The Conversation is a three-pronged approach, based on the strategies of self-defense:

1. Discuss what you consider acceptable and unacceptable uses of your child’s digital device. Here's how one Massachusetts mom got her son to sign an 18-point agreement on the condition of receiving his new iPhone. Use her strategy. Likely you already own the devices and that's your leverage.
2. Get familiar with the most frequent apps and social media platforms your teen is drawn to. Don't know what these tactics are? Stay on top of it with our Hot Topics blog on the most common types of cyberbullying.
3. Next, have a talk about conflict. Conflict is the root of most cyberbullying situations and it is inevitable your child will be involved in conflict at some point with a friend, a boyfriend/girlfriend, a teacher or even a stranger. Whether your child is the target, the instigator or caught in the cross-fire, "pre-playing" the potential outcomes to the conflict is key.

Lastly, here’s my professional opinion on the app Snapchat used in this particular situation.

Snapchat is a free app for iPhones, iPads and Android phones, allowing you to send a photo that will supposedly disappear in 10 seconds.

It was originally designed so the recipient couldn’t save the photo, but there have been workarounds for years to thwart that without Snapchat notifying the sender.

For minors, (and even impressionable young adults above 18) it is a sure fire way to get in legal trouble with even just one mistake. It guarantees many years of emotional pain and self-loathing when that “mistake,” a nude selfie, gets into the hands of a malicious person who shares or publicizes it.

If you have had The Conversation and you trust your teen 100 percent that he or she will never make that mistake, it’s your call to let him or her keep Snapchat and/or other apps like it on their digital devices. But if you even have a single doubt, get rid of it off your minor’s phone, iPad or digital device.

That’s my blunt advice.

Ignore the cries, “But everybody has it. I’ll be unpopular.”

Refer them to the 18-point agreement.

Here’s how to delete the app off each device:

1. Go to https://support.snapchat.com/delete-account in any web browser.
2. Enter your Snapchat username and password.(See 18-point agreement once again for this password)
3. Check the box confirming you aren't a robot.
4. Click on Submit.
5. Re-enter your password on the next page.
6. Click on Delete My Account.

Kay Stephens is a writer for Penobscot Bay Pilot, as well as an award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction. Her book, Cyberslammed, was used by the Maine Department of Education, in part, to draw up a sample cyberbullying policy for schools in Maine. More help for parents and schools, including the latest threats, cyberbullying apps and tactics can be found at cyberslammed.com

The Allure and Danger of Posting Selfies Online is the second video in our webinar series to help give you a better understanding of Internet Safety and Cyberbullying.  Kay Stephens, co-author of Cyberslammed, tells us some things to consider before posting a selfie, ways that they are being used to cyberbully and how you can help protect your teen.

Click here to watch the 5 min webinar.  

Get all of the tactics in one book and prepare your child to recognize and defuse certain types of cyberbullying. Summer Sale: $12.50 Buy The Book


Over the last six months, experts have noticed a shift in the way teens are communicating. Tired of of the transparency and parental monitoring of Facebook, many are searching for more anonymous alternatives and are gravitating toward social networking sites like Whisper and Instagram.  New month, different app, that's the way it goes. Parents and teachers can't keep up. (Not surprisingly, by the time they do, that's the cue for the teens to move on.)  Instagram, a photo sharing app that can be registered under an anonymous screenname, is like an underground speakeasy. Adults aren't hip to all the hidden back rooms yet, making it a perfect app to be used as a cyberbullying tool.

Even though Instagram's Community Guidelines prohibit nudity and graphic sexual poses, within two minutes, I was able to find dozens and dozens of pages depicting drug use, slut-shaming women, and graphic, explicit nudity. (Some of these photos I don't doubt are underage, which would categorize it as child pornography).

Yes, this is where a lot of teens have found their new outlet. And to be fair, many teens simply use Instagram the way it was intended, to share photos with friends and be social. I'm not sure why Instagram allows the other photos to stay online given their Guidelines, but just earlier this month, a Napa California police department investigated an Instagram page after receiving multiple reports  that it contained “inappropriate” images of females.

The  images were posted on a page called “napahoezexxposed." Translation: Napa Hoez Exxposed-- an Instagram page dedicated to labeling certain girls and women as whores. This is a combined Sexting and Rating Site tactic where someone uploaded photos of females (allegedly without their consent) in various stages of undress (thus Sexting) with the motive to slut-shame these girls by allowing commenters to rate them (thus a Rating Site). I've seen multiple versions of the so-called "Exposing Hos" tactic on Facebook and Twitter, but, apparently Instagram is the new technological vehicle for the same type of behavior. 

Time Magazine's recent article "What Boys Want" by Rosalind  Wiseman recently featured a fascinating article on why today's teens engage in Sexting, even when they know of the steep risks. The takeway I got from this article is that with this digital generation so used to the casual release of Kim Kardashian-type of sex tapes, snapping a nude pic or photographing a sexually explicit pose isn't as a big deal to this generation as it should be.  Certain teens (particularly those with low-self esteem) tend to have a careless regard for their own image and reputation and just don't think about the consequences to such actions.  When sending a nude photo to a someone is the only way you'll get his/her attention or keep his/her attraction, there are bigger issues here than the actual photo. The same goes for teens who request the photos as status symbols and insurance (in case of being rejected.)

Regardless, you can now see how the stage has been set for using these photos as cyberbullying currency. With teenage girls, we must keep the conversation going about alternatives to Sexting, not from a prudish standpoint, but from a reputation-destroying-forever-online standpoint. No girl wants a private "for your eyes only" photo to go virally, embarrassingly public. But, as statistics show,  it inevitably will.  And today, when a lapse in judgment results in being branded a whore on the Internet for all to comment on and judge, this is the time to talk to that teen in your life about that secret photo on his/her phone they hope you'll never find out about.


Get all of the tactics in one book and prepare your child to recognize and defuse certain types of cyberbullying. Sale: $12.50 Buy The Book

A while back, this photo on a Facebook site called "Girls Did You Know"  stirred up one of the latest cyberbullying memes called "slut shaming "in which woman or a girl is shamed online and/or attacked  for being sexual, having one or more sexual partners, acknowledging sexual feelings, and/or acting on sexual feelings" according to Finally Feminism 101.

First, let's get our definitions straight. This photo above, which triggered a Good Morning America segment on the topic of bullying is not cyberbullying any particular target, It is a parody. The girl in the photo is clearly the author of the sentiment--she is not being targeted herself.

Slut-shaming, a topic we cover in Cyberslammed, however, is very real and while the above photo is not a proper example, all it takes is a provocative self-portrait or a Sexting image/video to get loose on the Internet before a nasty Digital Pile On happens.

Sixteen-year-old reporter Temitayo Fagbenle whose column "Online 'Shaming' A New Level Of Cyberbullying For Girls" on NPR said, "A recent Facebook posting I saw had a picture of a half-naked girl, lying on bed. The boy who posted it tagged the picture so that everyone could see it and go to the girl's page. Within less than an hour, the photo had about 443 likes and 261 comments. Comments like "your life is officially shot LMAO," and "I think she gonna cut her veins when she see this."

People post these pictures and videos and make "smut lists" for their neighborhood or school.

The boy who put up the picture posted a status update saying he received 2,000 friend requests because of the photo; and things like this are a regular occurrence at my school."

And it's not just boys who engage in slut-shaming cyberbullying. As Fagbenle stated, "Talking to a group of girls at my school about this online slut shaming, some of them say they often feel the need to shame other girls for their improper behavior. 'They do it to themselves,' one girl says. 'Half the time we can't even blame the guys.' "

Regardless of who is doing the slut-shaming as a cyberbullying tactic, keep this in mind. Many times girls are photographed and videotaped without their knowledge and against their will (as in the case of Reddit's  Creepshots, i.e. upskirt photos taken of high school girls without their knowledge).

They clearly don't deserve the harassment. Girls who willingly engage in sexting or videotaping their own sexual experiences are horrified to learn this information has been shared (inevitably) when the couple breaks up.  But do they deserve to have a sexting photo or video go viral for the peverse entertainment of others? Absolutely not.

What about the girls who post photos of themselves, clothed, but provocatively posed?

In this digital age age of abuse and misuse, it's vain, narcissistic and just plain stupid for girls to ever post sexualized "selfies", i.e. self-taken photos showing, but that is their choice. (Did I also mention it's incredibly niaive to assume overly sexualized images won't be manipulated and spread around in some way? Of course it will--it's Internet currency.) But girls who are navigating their own sexuality never deserve to be defamed, libeled and ridiculed on such slut-shaming sites as These Hoes Getting Exposed.


Get all of the tactics in one book and prepare your child to recognize and defuse certain types of cyberbullying. Sale: $12.50 Buy The Book

If you're under 18, then yeah, it's a very bad idea. Worse, if you're over 18 and dating someone younger than 18.

Parents of teenagers who are in relationships with cellphones are you listening?

Any nude or semi-nude photos that are transmitted electronically (even just sent via cell phone) are considered in many states to be child pornography trafficking, even if the juvenile is sending a photo of himself or herself. The laws vary from state to state, but here in our home state of Maine, for example, the law is extremely harsh.

According to Mobile Media Guard "Under Maine law anyone - regardless of age - who creates, distributes or possesses an image of a minor engaged in a sexually explicit act may be prosecuted under the State’s child pornography laws and if convicted, may serve up to 10 years in jail and be required to register as a sex offender."

Most kids and adults I've spoken to at statewide presentations over the last few months know the term "sexting," but had no idea the stiff penalties associated with it. Furthermore, most adults and kids didn't realize that if they encountered a sext on a cell phone or via the Internet, they, themselves could possibly be arrested for forwarding that photo electronically in any way--even to the authorities!

The fact that 36% of Americans (I'm assuming they polled adults) are admitting to engaging in what is called "consensual sexting" is frankly not a surprise. Teens engage in this form of relationship currency all the time. They're calling them "Selfies" self-shot provocative photos, an absolutely beautifully narcissistic way to capture one's youth. Thanks Rihanna!

When it stops being "consensual" and begins being cyberbullying is the moment the relationship turns sour or ends. This is the kind of "what would you do" talk you should be having with your teenagers who own cell phones. For example:

Parent: "What happens when Joe or Mary decides to spread your image around to all 500 of his/her Facebook friends?"

Teen: "He/she would never do that!" i

When 1 in 5 sext recipients report they have passed the images along to someone else and more than half (55%) of those who have reported sending them to someone else say they shared them with more than one person--try saying that again with a straight face.

Get all of the tactics in one book and prepare your child to recognize and defuse certain types of cyberbullying. Summer Sale: $12.50 Buy The Book

I'm sure every pair of eyes were on Amanda Todd's mother when she got up before a group of Metro Vancouver mothers in her first public appearance since her daughter's death.

"If my daughter didn't believe everyone at the end of that Internet was innocent she would be alive today," she said in a November 5 Vancouver Sun story 

As always, the point of this blog is to examine the tactics used in individual cyberbullying cases and to dissect them as a way to provide parents and educators with teachable moments for the kids in their lives.
According to an article in Digital Journal, when Amanda was 12 years old, she flashed her breasts to a boy she'd met online through a webcam she was using with friends.

"Police knocked on her door early on Christmas Eve of that year to tell her the picture had been posted online. This began her slide into depression that included anxiety, substance abuse, and cutting herself."

Not knowing the family personally, I can only speculate, but it sounds as if the girls were role playing a flirty version of "Girls Gone Wild" like it was a joke, a lark.This type of Sexting happens all the time; it's what author Nancy Willard Executive Director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use characterizes as a way to negotiate relationship issues, not actual cyberbullying Sexting. At 12, Todd probably wouldn't have thought what kind of terrible consequences could derive from flashing a stranger.

But the cyberbullying instantly started with a nasty Digital Pile On as well as morphed offline into physical bullying where Todd was actually beaten up by a group of teens.

In the Vancouver Sun article, Carol Todd told the group: "Amanda eventually came to realize the mistakes that she made from that one night when she was 12 years old," Todd told the crowd, referring to an incident in which Amanda flashed someone on the Internet. "She never thought it would come to haunt her for the rest of her life. It was a mistake - it became a life sentence and in the end, it contributed to her death."

Webcams or smartphones--the technology doesn't matter-when it comes to Sexting, there are multiple reasons to do it and the underlying conversation every mother needs to be having with her daughter before the new phone is handed over is: Can I trust you to protect yourself with this device? Pre-play with them the various scenarios.

Tell her what happened to Amanda, to thousands of girls across the country whose innocent mistakes have come back to haunt them. The Sexting conversation is essential in every household these days, more than any other topic we cover in our book. The technology will always be available. It's up to us to prevent the behavior.

Get all of the tactics in one book and prepare your child to recognize and defuse certain types of cyberbullying. Sale: $12.50 Buy The Book

Digital Show and Tell?

In April, 2010, one Bethesda, Md middle school student allegedly rented out his iPod Touch to classmates, which contained female classmates in various stages of undress. Read the full story here. The girls apparently posed willingly and most of the images were close-ups of body parts with not many faces showing. But the police determined the girls hadn't been coerced.  They were all playing a game--and naturally, they never imagined would get found out. This was the classic: "You show me yours and I'll show you mine" game with 21st Century tools.

Here you have a prime example of what is often considered "experimental" Sexting as opposed to a more malicious form, known as "Cyberbullying Sexting."  Parents and Educators need to know the difference and not paint every single circumstance with the same brush.  That's why it is important to do a Scene Survey with your teen immediately after discovering a Sexting incident.

Get all of the facts before going to the police. And determine what your state laws are around 'Sexting' right away before making a decision.

A parent involved in this case, wrote more of an in-depth explanation to Ann Collier, Editor of Net Family News (who discussed this case in her blog) The following is his words to Collier.

"I am one of the parents involved in this issue," wrote this father of a then-16-year-old. When school administrative staff ["head principal, two assistants, director of curriculum and the possibility of more," he later told me] started their investigation the morning of Sept. 24, 2009, they knew then that they were dealing with students and nude pictures, but they continued this [investigation] all day long before contacting parents and police, even passing these phones around to other staff.... My son was interrogated by the head principal along with the director of curriculum. They called my son a sex offender, told him he would go to prison, and that he would be placed on Megan's [sex offender] list. Then he was contained in the nurse's office for over two hours. Other students were treated basically the same....

"My son along with [seven] other students [three girls and four boys] admitted they had a picture or pictures on their phones, etc. They told school staff who was in the pictures, etc., [but] the staff still went through [the phones].... The principal told us he didn't want to talk to the girl about this issue, saying 'he felt uncomfortable,' though he didn't mind viewing her pictures and others' as well." [By the sound of it, the police called in at the end of the school day were the best part of this experience, reportedly respectful and clear about the students' rights and what was and wasn't lawful about the school's investigation – for example, a state trooper told the dad that he would need signed parental consent or a warrant signed by a judge to go through students' cell phones. The law differs from state to state, but that's something parents should ask if they're ever in this position: Do school officials have the legal right to search their children's phones without a warrant on school premises?"

Conceding that his son and his friends were not without blame-- "These kids did this willingly, they are friends. Don't get me wrong, I don't condone this, it was stupid, but they were basically keeping this private amongst themselves, meaning no harm.... " the father's point was, the punishment was incompatible with the so-called crime.

The outcome: The students went through public humiliation, arrest (fingerprinting, mug shots, etc.), expulsion hearings before the school board, prosecution as adults, probation, fines, classes, and the possibility of felony convictions remaining on their records.

As Anne Collier's elaborates in her blog post "Of school policy on sexting", cases like this need to boil down to common sense reasoning.

"School policy and penalties should not only be sure to handle cases differently, based on what category the behavior falls into; they should also handle students differently, based on what investigations reveal about their motives. For example, if two students were involved in “experimental” sexting that led to an honest (or stupid but non-malicious) mistake on the part of one of them (such as forwarding a photo to a friend who turns around and distributes it widely), the mistake should be penalized differently from the malicious action of the 3rd party."